The present invention relates to low ground pressure track shoes for track-laying vehicles.
It is common practice to equip track-laying vehicles with extra wide tracks to provide adequate floatation for operating the vehicle over swampy or extremely loose terrain. However, oftentimes, relatively firm or hard terrain also exists at the same site as does the swampy or loose terrain and heretofore, low ground pressure track shoes have had one or more shortcomings when operated over relatively firm or hard terrain. For example, some prior art shoe designs include a ground-engaging surface having an apex extending the length of the shoe and located in a vertical plane. When a track employing such shoes is engaged with hard material, the shoes tend to rock fore-and-aft on their apices as the track link joints move between adjacent track support rollers. This rocking results in flexure at the track joints which increases wear thereto and also results in the links impacting and causing increased wear to the rollers and further increasing the wear to the track link joints. While U.S. Pat. No. 3,278,244, issued to Deffenbaugh et al on Oct. 11, 1966, discloses a track shoe having a fore-and-aft arched apex for giving stability to the track shoe to eliminate the problem just discussed, the patented shoe shares another drawback with some prior art design shoes in that it effects high twisting forces in the chain when the vehicle is turned with the track being engaged with relatively firm or hard material.